Hi everyone this is Allie, Elise, and Chica. Thank you for following us on our journey! Can you believe today is our last day in Johannesburg?
In the morning we picked up the wonderful Mama Thandi. She joined us on the bus to give us a historical tour as we made our way to Soweto.
(group pic)
We briefly stopped at the FNB stadium, which is the largest stadium in Africa! In 2010 the world cup was hosted here, and in 2013 this is where Nelson Mandela’s funeral service was held.
After a driving tour around Soweto, we headed to the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum. Hector Pieterson was one of the first children killed in the Soweto Uprising of June 16th, 1976, which arose out of students protesting the requirement that all schools teach in Afrikaans. He was only 12 years old. His memorial (pictured below) has flowing water representing the blood spilled during that horrific day, and the stones represent the only object that students were armed with against the police force.
The Slate used for the walls are meant to represent the stark contrast the soldiers created in relation to the Children
At the Hector Pieterson Museum, we learned more about what led up to the June 16th protests and violent retaliation from the police. Before 1976, it was not compulsory for Black students to go to school. Due to the poverty Black families faced under apartheid, many children did not go to school to help support their families. In the 1950s, Bantu education was introduced, which forced Black students to receive a less sophisticated education than white students in order to teach them manual working skills. As a response, Steve Biko, Black Consciousness, and the South African Students’ Organization arose in the 70s. These ideologies that were created by Biko are what inspired the protests in response to the implementation of Afrikaans in 1976. Mama Thandi, our wonderful tour guide, shared that she was one of the students that protested in the streets.
It’s estimated that between 700-1,200 students were killed. A memorial at the museum had a brick labeled with each person’s name that was identified and the date they died. Many bodies were never identified.
The museum happens to be on the same street as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu’s house. So we went there directly after! Upon arriving Jane, who works at the Mandela house now turned museum, gave us a brief tour of the area. She explained that after Mandela’s release from prison and following his presidency his house was turned into a historic museum.
The inside of the house is now filled with pictures, awards, and memorabilia of Nelson and Winnie Mandela’s life
After seeing the Mandela house we walked a few blocks down the street to quickly see where Desmond TuTu once lived. It is now occupied by his children and is not a museum so we just looked from the outside!
Lunch at Mama Lindiwe’s
At mama Lindiwe’s we had the opportunity to meet with her and some matriarchs of the community who work with her. Pairs from our group were each partnered with one of the matriarchs who took time to get to know us, the meaning behind our names, and letting us know the story connected to theirs. If our names didn’t have a meaning, getting an understanding of our personalities and habits would help them when they were gifting us our African names. We spent some time practicing how to give a greeting and introduce ourselves before we washed our hands to eat.
Part of immersing ourselves in the culture today meant eating the food as it was intended to be consumed, without utensils, only our hands. Thankfully this was not the first time for most of us and it wasn’t too big of an adjustment. The food was amazing, the flavors blended well together and we were all able to have multiple servings, with some of us being able to get food to go.
After we ate we sat back with our Matrons and were given our names. Taking time to make sure we got the different Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, and Venda pronunciations down, we all took turns presenting before the collective. It was very fun learning more about our hosts and getting closer to them, and afterwards we were able to engage as a whole to exchange information about our communities, and ask any questions we had about life in South Africa. We learned that coming off the heels of Apartheid women did now have constitutional rights and protections, but the lived reality is not always a reflection of that. Violence perpetrated against women is rampant and more often than not, a woman from a less educated or informed background will not know that things could be different. There can be justice for the women who have the capacity to pursue it, but lack of support from police can be an impediment. Wanting to understand South Africas position on gender inclusive language, we inquired and came to understand that in many of the native languages pronouns aren’t used in the same way, despite society being very gendered. So when people communicate in English you can find that cis people will occasionally be misgendered, though there is a present effort towards inclusion.
After we said our farewells to the group we parted ways with Mama Thandi and headed off to Nelson Mandela Square to finish the day. We spent some time trying to explore but the area was massive, and would’ve taken all day to see everything. We all got something for dinner, and those who had funds did a bit of shopping.
SMCVT South Africa 2024 
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